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November 18, 2012

[One
of the buildings was used by al-Quds channel, which serves as a mouthpiece for
Hamas, the militant group that rules Gaza. The Foreign Press Association in
Israel issued a letter expressing concern and noting that a United Nations
Security Council resolution says that journalists covering conflict civilians
that must be protected. ]

TEL
AVIV — The Israeli military struck two buildings used by journalists in Gaza
early Sunday during the fifth day of a campaign against militants in the
Palestinian enclave. Hours later, artillery rounds landed in southern Israeli
cities and the country’s missile defense system intercepted a powerful
long-range rocket over Tel Aviv, the second such incident in as many days.

Sunday’s
strikes in Gaza suggested Israel is continuing to expand its range of targets
after hitting almost exclusively military sites during the first few days of
the operation, dubbed Pillar of Defense. On Saturday, an Israeli bomb
demolished the office of Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh. The crossfire
dimmed hopes for a ceasefire as Arab leaders led by Egyptian President Mohamed
Morsi were set to convene in Cairo on Sunday to discuss a negotiated end to the
conflict.

“We
are extracting a heavy price from Hamas and the terror organizations,” Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday during the opening session of the
weekly cabinet meeting. “The army is prepared to significantly expand the
operation.”

The
sites hit in Gaza early Sunday included buildings used by Britain’s Sky News
channel and the Dubai-based pan-Arab broadcaster al-Arabiya, the news
organizations reported. At least six journalists were wounded, according to a
health ministry spokesman in Gaza quoted by wire services.

One
of the buildings was used by al-Quds channel, which serves as a mouthpiece for
Hamas, the militant group that rules Gaza. The Foreign Press Association in
Israel issued a letter expressing concern and noting that a United Nations
Security Council resolution says that journalists covering conflict civilians
that must be protected.

The
Israeli military said the sites struck overnight included a “communications
antenna used by Hamas to carry out terrorist activity.” In a statement, it said
it also hit dozens of underground rocket launchers and a Hamas training base.

Avital
Leibovich, an Israeli military spokeswoman said Sunday that the media buildings
struck included key Hamas communication infrastructure.

“The
target was not journalists,” she told reporters in Jerusalem. “The journalists
in these buildings were serving as human shields for Hamas.”

Leibovich
said the prospect of a ground operation remains “on the table,” but that the
country’s leaders have not yet decided whether to deploy troops into Gaza.

A
nighttime lull in rocket fire from Gaza ended shortly after 8 a.m. as rockets
landed in Ashkelon and Eshkol, southern Israeli cities. Around 10:30 a.m., the
artillery warning siren in Tel Aviv rang out seconds before a long-range rocket
was blasted overhead by the country’s anti-missile system, known as Iron Dome.
Local media reported that a vehicle struck by debris caught on fire.

Israel’s
offensive in the
Gaza Strip expanded to target Hamas government buildings on Saturday.
Palestinian militants continued firing a torrent of rockets at civilian areas
in southern Israel as both sides stepped up diplomatic efforts to win support.

Israeli
airstrikes over Gaza accelerated to nearly 200 early in the day, including one
hit that reduced the offices of Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh to a
smoldering concrete heap. That strike, along with others on a police
headquarters and smuggling tunnels along the strip’s southern border with
Egypt, raised questions about whether Israel had broadened its mission to
including toppling the Hamas government that rules the coastal strip.

Just
before sundown on Saturday, Hamas said it had fired an Iranian-made Fajr-5
rocket at Tel Aviv, and air raid sirens sounded in that city for the third day
in a row. The Israeli military said its newly deployed missile defense battery
intercepted the rocket before it landed in the populous coastal city.

Even
as airstrikes pounded the area Saturday morning, the foreign minister of
Tunisia’s Islamist-led government, Rafik Abdessalem, arrived in Gaza with a
delegation, underscoring Hamas’s newfound credibility in a region dramatically
altered by the Arab Spring. Abdessalem expressed outrage at what he called
Israeli “aggression” and pledged to unite with other Arab countries to end the
conflict.

In
Cairo, Egyptian
President Mohamed Morsi, whose
prime minister visited Gaza on Friday, held meetings with Turkey’s prime
minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and the emir of Qatar, Sheik Hamad Bin Khalifa
al-Thani — both Hamas supporters — to discuss what Morsi and other regional
leaders have promised will be a more robust response to Israel’s actions than
during past conflicts. By Saturday night, rumors of Morsi, Erdogan and Hamas
chairman Khaled Meshal hashing out a cease-fire plan were swirling but
unconfirmed.

Also
in Cairo, the Arab
League held an emergency meeting of foreign ministers to discuss a response
to the conflict. Many participants called for Arab assistance to the
Palestinians and a “reconsideration” of Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel. But
it was unclear if the usually ineffectual league would deliver decisive action
by the end of its summit.

Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, took his country’s case to
European leaders. In conversations with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the
prime ministers of Italy, Greece and the Czech Republic, Netanyahu argued that
“no country in the world would agree to a situation in which its population
lives under a constant missile threat,” according to an Israeli government
statement. The government announced that it was launching a special operations
center for public diplomacy, centered on “the unified message that Israel is
under fire.”

The
White House reiterated its support for the Israeli operation, which the
military says is intended to stop rocket fire that has escalated in the four
years since Israel last invaded Gaza to stunt attacks by Hamas, an Islamist
movement that Israel and the United States consider a terrorist group.

“Israelis
have endured far too much of a threat from these rockets for far too long,” Ben
Rhodes, a deputy U.S. national security adviser, told reporters traveling with
President Obama to Asia. Rhodes declined to comment on the Israelis’ choice of
targets, but he said White House officials “always underscore the importance of
avoiding civilian casualties.”

The
death toll in Gaza rose to 45 by Saturday evening, Health Ministry officials
said. Three Israelis have been killed by rocket
fire from Gaza since the operation began. An Israeli military spokesman
said about 130 rockets were fired from Gaza at Israel on Saturday, 30 of which
were intercepted by a missile defense system known as Iron
Dome.

The
Israeli airstrikes, which continued to target rocket-launching sites and
weapons depots, slowed throughout the day, even as Israel appeared to be
channeling new efforts toward Hamas civilian institutions. Capt. Eytan Buchman,
an Israeli military spokesman, said the strikes were “part of our overarching
goal of toppling Hamas’s command and control capabilities” and did not mark a
shift in mission.

Haniyeh,
the Hamas prime minister, was apparently not at his office when it was hit.

According
to the newspaper Haaretz, Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai said the “goal
of the operation is to send Gaza back to the Middle Ages.”

That
is how it felt to Hossam and Sanaa al-Dadah, two teachers who had the
misfortune of living next door to a house the Israeli military said belonged to
a Hamas commander.

At
6 a.m., the family’s windows shattered and their walls burst open. The adjacent
house, in the Jabaliya refugee camp, had been demolished in an airstrike, and
suddenly theirs was ruined, too.

In
the terrifying moments that followed, Hossam al-Dadah, 50, frantically dug his
five children out of the rubble, and a few hours later, they had been taken
away to their grandparents’ home. But a dust-caked Sanaa, 40, rushed from room
to room, crying and gathering her children’s clothing, school bags and dolls
and placing them on a sheet.

Israel
says Hamas operates in populated areas to use civilians as human shields, and
it has dropped thousands of leaflets over Gaza warning civilians to stay away
from Hamas operatives. Sanaa said she never got the message.

“Where
are we going to go?” she said again and again. “The Israelis are responsible.
They are the enemy of God. What did we do? Did we carry any missiles? Did we
launch any rockets?”

Outside
the house, children played insouciantly in rubble and scorched cars. Rami
Mukayed, a 12-year-old in gray trousers, said he reserved his fear for
darkness.

“At
night, come see me, I’m panicked,” he said. “I play in the morning. I hide in
the evening.”

Effect
on peace process

In
a speech in Cairo, Erdogan said the Gaza conflict called for a new era of
Egyptian-Turkish cooperation.

“If
Turkey and Egypt unite, everybody will be singing of peace in the region,” he
said. “And if we stick together, the region will no longer be dominated by
crying and weeping.”

Speakers
at the Arab League meeting made the same argument.

“We
can no longer accept empty meetings and meaningless resolutions,” said Arab
League chief Nabil Elaraby, addressing the assembly at the start of the
meeting. He urged Arab states to adopt a “strict stance” on the conflict.

Issandr
El Amrani, a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations who
heads a blog called the Arabist, said the Gaza standoff has presented the new Arab
Spring governments and other regional heavyweights an opportunity to reconsider
their position on Israel and the peace process in a series of talks that could
have long-term regional implications.

For
years, the Arab League has floated a proposal for an Israeli-Palestinian peace
deal that Israel never took seriously, Amrani said. Arab states might now
choose to drop that proposal and adopt more aggressive approaches — Egypt could
revise the terms of its peace treaty with Israel; Arab states might consider
providing covert aid to Hamas; and others will amplify the pressure on Israel
through diplomatic corridors, he said.

By
Saturday night, despite mounting rhetorical and symbolic support to Gaza’s
Hamas leadership, the Arab ministers’ meeting had announced plans to send a
delegation to Gaza but had stopped short of pledging immediate material support
to Hamas.

“I’ve
seen a lot of talk about doing something and how there’s a collective Arab
responsibility to act,” Amrani said, “but no one has suggested anything
concrete.”

Reyham
Abdul-Karim and Islam Abdul-Karim in Gaza City and Ernesto Londoño in Tel Aviv
contributed to this report.